We've crossed 10K! 🤯 And another important announcement 🌱

Hi, friends 👋

First off…holy smokes. On Saturday (9/23), we crossed 10,000 folks reading HTG!

This definitely is not where I parked my car.

My first post, How Notion Grows, was published on September 21st, 2022. Pretty much exactly one year ago. When it went out, I had just under 200 subscribers (from over a year writing another newsletter).

363 days and 73 posts later—thanks to every single one of you who’ve been kind enough to give me your email, trust me with your time, and share HTG—this project has grown to over 10,000 readers. Or, 50X.

Truly, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. ❤️ This has been an absolute hoot, I’ve learned a ton studying these companies, and have thoroughly enjoyed meeting and collaborating with other incredible creators like , , and , as well as meeting other brilliant authors from the community like , , , and several others.

Joining Substack and writing for all of you guys…and myself…has been one of the best decisions I’ve made. And it goes without saying…we’re just getting started. 🫡

And with this double milestone—10K strong and 1 year of writing—comes this post’s second announcement.

Not to bury the lead…I’m adding a paid membership tier. Except, not to worry, nothing will change in terms of what you’re getting right now. I’m doing it differently from most other paid newsletters.

I’ve been writing each week for a year now, and I’ve spent a good deal of time over the past few months noodling over how to go paid, or why to even do it at all.

Let’s start with why I’ve decided to add a paid plan. After a lot of thought, I’ve nailed it down to 3 reasons:

Reason #1: While this was meant to be a pet project, this has turned into a real thing. And the feedback you’ve been sharing with me about how valuable some of you have found HTG has been immensely gratifying and validating. ❤️ For instance.

Reason #2: I only plan on delivering even more value to every single one of you. As my writing gets better and my research process goes deeper, expect more actionable and insightful content to help you get better at product, growth, strategy, and startups.

Reason #3: Lastly, I spend a lot of time working on this. 😅 About 80 hours a month researching and writing. Each deep dive takes about 30 hours (2 per month), and then there’s the weekly 5 bits (4 hours each).

So, that’s the why. Now, what does “going paid” here mean and how does it affect you? 

The status quo is for writers to paywall most of their content—whether entire posts are for paid readers or have a paywall somewhere in the middle. Honestly, looking at this with my PM hat on, this is probably the best way to get more conversions.

Call me the village idiot then, but I’d like to try something different.

For starters, if you find my writing valuable, I’d like to ask you to consider supporting my work for the price of a single coffee (in New York) per month. ☕

But let’s get more specific…

Why should I subscribe?

• To get better at your job

• To get better at building and growing products

• ✨ I am launching a new subscribers-only series. ✨

• To show your support for this newsletter and get my eternal gratitude 🫶

• If you apply even just one learning successfully, I am absolutely confident this will pay for itself at least 100X over.

• PLUS: I’m tinkering with a few other ideas. And early paid members will get large discounts on things like:

  • Digital products I launch, like a searchable swipe library of actionable frameworks and mental models.

  • Coaching and micro consulting

  • Courses

What’s changing?

Nothing. 🙃 If you decide to remain free, that’s totally fair. You will still keep getting all my posts (deep dives, 5-bits, etc) that you originally subscribed for and came to expect. I never want a subscription to stop you from reading.

As mentioned above, I’ll be adding a new series called From The Garden. A $7/m subscription will also unlock these insider posts for you. ✨

What will it cost?

The regular price is $10 a month, or $100 a year. But, to thank you for being an early supporter, the first 500 folks who become How They Grow founding members and join the community will get it for $7/month, for life.

That’s what a single coffee costs. You’ll get 80 hours of my work per month, and content that can make you better at your job.

I think that’s a fair price. You can also cancel anytime.

If it helps with experimenting with just one approach that helps you or your team work better, it’s a win that I’m pretty sure the ROI on will easily be 100x.

Also, this is of course expensible to your company. Almost every employer will reimburse you $70 for an annual subscription that makes you better at work. Feel free to use this template to send your boss. 

✨ And, to those first 500 of you who join, you’ll also get 30% off any future HTG products. For example, some of the stuff I’m thinking about creating include (1) premium digital products (coming soon), (2) courses, and (3) micro-consulting and 1:1 coaching/mentoring. ✨

If you’ve found value in this newsletter, or just want to support the work I’m doing, consider subscribing. It would mean a lot to me. 🙏

As always, thank you so much for reading, being here, and just making this newsletter a real thing. I appreciate it so much, and am so excited to see where we take this thing.

— Jaryd